So basically, my 4GB 1st-gen (yes, the very first iPhone model) has been “retired.” It recently was never getting any signal… regardless of the SIM cards I put in it. Those same cards immediately work with my XDA; which I kept handy as a backup.

Naturally, I needed a replacement iPhone ASAP; so I decided to get a legitimately unlocked iPhone 3GS. Here are my impressions of the new phone.

The Good

Speed

While I didn’t notice it the first time, it is much faster. That would probably be a moot point given I’m comparing it to a first-generation iPhone, but I did appreciate the application load times. And the best performance increase for me was the keyboard. I literally could stall or temporarily hang the keyboard on my old unit because I was “too fast” for it – at least this one could keep up with me.

Camera

While I still consider the iPhone’s camera as a “crap-cam,” ¹ I mean, if you have a decent point and shoot and DSLR, how could you not right? I did get a kick out of the tap-to-focus feature it had. Honestly, it’s one thing I wish real cameras had – I’m not sure how you could work that with an DSLR, but it’s perfect for point and shoots.

Also, video with editing (trim) features built-in was a nice touch. 3MP count I guess is a big deal; as it makes it a decent “emergency capture device” to have with you all the time.

Voice Control

This blew me away. No “training” required. Although the phone reads “Tanjutco” back with “J” as in “jet,” it still caught it correctly even if you said it the right way (tan-hoot-co). The issue with voice recognition, most of the time, is that they can handle sounds that can be commonly found in english, but almost always mess up with they’re not. So catching something like “Tanjutco” was very impressive. I’m going to try it with other complex names to verify if this indeed is the case.

Volume

Again, I only have the 1st gen to compare it with, but it’s much louder – which is good since I missed a lot of calls in fairly noisy places because of the dismal volume my old iPhone had.

DFU mode

This is really more for the jailbreaking scene. It’s much easier to get the 3GS into DFU mode.

On the older units (or at least with my 1st gen) you’d have to turn it off, then press power with home for two seconds… then let go of the power while keeping the home pressed for 10 seconds… and it’s easy to mess it up if you got the timing wrong.

With the 3GS, you simply turn it off, hold down the HOME button… then plug in the USB (which will power it on automatically) and only let go of the HOME button when you see the Apple logo disappear.

Unlocked

This is only applicable to legally unlocked units. I opted to spend extra to get a “factory unlocked” (explanation on the quotes later) unit so that in the event of an OS update that “stumps” the hacking scene, I can at the very least, use the phone even if I couldn’t jailbreak it yet. ² And the hackers usually figure out how to jailbreak any OS iteration fairly quickly… not so much with unlocking

I always wondered how a “legally unlocked” unit works. After all, we use the same IPSWs across the board. I found the answer as soon as I plugged the phone the first time (to “activate” it). I posted a video on my YouTube channel complete with annotations to walk you through the whole “process.”

Basically the “unlock” process is done by Apple itself when your iPhone gets the chance to “phone home.” It usually does during first activation. ³ All legitimate iPhone owners activate the phone via iTunes So you plug it in, it phones home. I’m guessing Apple has a database of what phones are carrier-free, then if it detects yours is one of them, it promptly unlocks it and shows you the screen above. It seems to be very similar to how online activation for software works… only that your “activation code” is the hardware itself (perhaps via the IMEI or serial number)

So it’s safe to assume that all iPhones are hardware locked by default. This means that if you buy an “unlocked phone” and find out that it works with a carrier you know it shouldn’t work with right out of the box, that’s not necessarily a good sign; the phone probably has been tampered with – just pray that “tampering” means that they simply plugged it into iTunes for the phone to unlock itself. If not, then you won’t have the peace of mind of being able to update the OS anytime, with impunity.

The Bad

Construction

Must be due to cost-cutting, but I really don’t like the plastic back on all the successors of the 1st gen iPhone. When I put mine back in the box, the back looked new because it was brushed aluminum, and the plastic part was matte… and I’ve been using it heavily for two years!

I had to buy a case like the Speck Candyshell to make sure the back was protected from scratching against the case.

Colors

Not that much of a biggie, but the 1st gen has better colors than the succeeding generations. People mentioned that there’s a “yellowish” tint on the newer models and I confirm this to be the case… but only when you’re not at maximum brightness. The 1st gen’s “whites” are better even if you have a dimmed backlight.

It’s more of an annoyance than anything else. If you’ve never owned an iPhone (or iPod touch) before, I don’t think you’ll even notice this “problem.” Also putting a matte screen protector seems to help out a bit for some reason… that or my eyes have gotten used to the new “colors.”

Conclusion

Being without the iPhone for a couple of weeks, made me realize that [IMHO] Apple had made the best mobile OS out there. They simply “get it” when it comes to usability; I never experienced a significant learning curve when transitioning from the XDA to the iPhone. The way you navigate, type, slide, etc. simply made sense, it got some getting used to at first, but it made sense.

When I was forced back to the XDA, I was frustrated 99% of the time. Having to bust out a stylus to navigate the resistive panel ⁴ The iPhone and all multi-touch devices nowadays use capacitive panels was torture once you got used to how quick you could “work” an iPhone with just your thumb(s). It was kinda pathetic really. ⁵ To think that the XDA had cost almost twice as much as an unsubsidized iPhone. The XDA cost me about $1k, whereas you can get an legally carrier-free iPhone for $200 cheaper.

What I’m trying to say, as I’ve mentioned before, is that the interface itself is the reason why I think the iPhone is a tough device to beat in the mobile market. This is why I think it’s better than the Blackberry, the G1 (Android), Palm Pre, etc. – at least for the time being.

While those other brands can keep on pumping out “cool” features… for as long as long as they don’t start re-thinking their UI approach, they’ll only keep on playing “catch-up” with the iPhone. The fact that Apple was so confident in a product that was proven to have less hardware features than those already in the market, ⁶ My XDA had so much more features than my iPhone 1st gen: 3G, FM radio, removable battery, TWO cameras, etc. I still preferred using the iPhone. and were right, goes to show how much more insight they have in the industry.